A view of Australia's detention of asylum seekers and a search for an antidote to the dictum "might makes right"

Monday, March 14, 2011

Our ABC losing the plot on carbon tax, nuclear energy and politics in general

Has any one been following 'our' ABC lately? It has become a vehicle for spruiking anti-government nonsense. Insiders on Sunday took the cake. I complained to the show and to the ABC complaints area. My comment to Insiders went like this:

"By contrast with last week your panel today was puerile and infantile. They spent most of the time bucketing Gillard & Rudd and what amounts to very little on the carbon tax, when the politics of the day are beset with serious issues. We could have had Abbott talking to the joint sitting, swinging his arms and telling them about how shit happens in Afghanistan, and we too have a tea party! Walsh and Bolt don’t have the necessary intellect to grapple with the issues of the day. Everything the government does is viewed through a narrow prism, liberally fertilised by the main by-product of their fevered brains – bullshit. At least Farr has a go at ‘balance’ but he reverts to the hail fellow well met default too easily. Barry, Barry, Barry, maybe its time to put your feet up….I turned you off half way as it was so intellectually debilitating."

Insiders, or as one wag put it 'Inciters', is the worst offender, frequently supplying some of the worst wing-nut commentators with a glad-handled forum, but has anyone noticed how key players on ABC News24 and RN have fallen into the default of government bashing? On a daily basis the slightest hint of variation from the Labor line by Rudd or Combet or whomever is pounced on as evidence of leadership murmurings and a failure of minority government. Gillard is criticised for basically being alive and in the job!

The trouble is Kelly, Trioli, Gilbert, Faine, Curtis and a conga line of mediocre journalists fail the test of detachment, objectivity and intellectual rigour. Perhaps their careers were advanced during the awful Howard years and they owe the reactionary side of politics something! I don't know what it is and I am afraid to know but, as a result, the truly dreadful lumpen mob that masquerade as journalists in the Murdoch stable run rough-shod over the public clearing houses of information and analysis, serving a right wing agenda to put ABBOTT in power. It is truly revolting to see how media is manipulated by robber barons to pursue their commercial interests and power games. The ABC is meant to counter this, but presently it is operating as a 'parenthetical amplification' of the lumpen propaganda machine.

How did this happen? What is behind it? Perhaps Mark Scott could let us all know why his journalists have become spokespersons for one of the most cynical power grabs in living memory, driven by the MSM.